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We Chat, They Watch

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Re: We Chat, They Watch

#481

Post by president »

88840-8855 wrote: post #275
sacks2k wrote: post #83

It's not just WeChat. They own stakes in many american media companies and movie production houses. They use this influence to also change our Media and push pro-Chinese propaganda to the American public.

Propaganda is propaganda. It does not surprise me and it is very obvious - even more obvious then the "USA SO HERO" and "WESTERN STUFF IS SO COOL" propaganda in movies.

The difference is there are plenty of US movies that can denounce their own government while Chinese movies can never take any criticism about themselves. I would take self-promotion over censorship any day.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#482

Post by president »

system2 wrote: post #255
xf1cf wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the pro-chinese propaganda on this site alone. The number of people supporting Zoom, WHO, WeChat, etc is enough to conclude with near certainty this site as well is owned by the Chinese. Unfortunately this comment and mine will be downvoted to oblivion. But the truth is the Chinese war doctrine is to purchase land and acquire covenants. Look at Africa, Indonesia, and India. They are bought wholesale by Ch…

Downvotes don't mean censorship. You clearly made your point with complete freedom of speech. Agreeing with you is another thing.

The problem is that downvoting alone doesn't really tell you anything meaningful other than someone didn't like your post. You can say something completely factual and logical but just because someone didn't like your tone, they can turn your post invisible. This does not promote healthy discourse. This also means that for any topic that is super controversial, the thing that determines whether the post gets seen or not is whether a majority group is able to downvote the post into oblivion early enough. Because once a post is greyed out, very few people are going to read it at that point and it will stay grey. At the very least, downvoting should require providing reasoning for the downvote so people can defend their argument.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#483

Post by goatinaboat »

orestarod wrote: post #413
goatinaboat wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see how an evidence-based person would conclude that China's government is working well Indeed, in the 50’s and 60’s it seemed plausible that the economies of North Korea, Cuba, Russia, the DDR were all going to surpass their Western counterparts before long. The wheels started to come off in the 70’s and by the 90’s it was all over for them.

But these countries were isolated from the world in terms of technology, economy and influence. China, on the other hand, is a country the West depends on both for production and profit, and has not closed off itself to anything that can help it stay on top. From a state of pariah, it rose to superpower status, and there is no real competitor to take its wheels off - the western companies and governments are the firs…

But these countries were isolated from the world

Do you not realise just how large the Communist world was back then? The USSR alone was vast. Now China and North Korea are all that’s left.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#484

Post by president »

dntbnmpls wrote: post #284
xf1cf wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can see the pro-chinese propaganda on this site alone. The number of people supporting Zoom, WHO, WeChat, etc is enough to conclude with near certainty this site as well is owned by the Chinese. Unfortunately this comment and mine will be downvoted to oblivion. But the truth is the Chinese war doctrine is to purchase land and acquire covenants. Look at Africa, Indonesia, and India. They are bought wholesale by Ch…

> You can see the pro-chinese propaganda on this site alone. Actually, most of the propaganda here and in social media has been anti-chinese. Obnoxiously so. > The number of people supporting Zoom, WHO, WeChat, etc is enough to conclude with near certainty this site as well is owned by the Chinese. What? Almost everything about Zoom, WHO, WeChat, etc has been negative. Even this thread has been negative. > What you'r…

The issue I see is not related to whether a site contains a balanced view point or not. That is up to honest moderation based on the site's guidelines.

The main issue is how a site provides tools for promoting healthy discussion. As long as a submission cooperates with a site's guidelines, the site's (moral) duty after that is to ensure that people that make good use of logic, reason, facts, and sources have their voices heard. What I see sometimes on this site is that people that have legitimate arguments and authoritative sources have their posts silenced (greyed out) or flagged just because a majority group of users disagreed emotionally. To me, that is a red flag. I believe that HN tries it's best to promote healthy discourse but I also believe that there is more they can do to optimize it.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#485

Post by goatinaboat »

88840-8855 wrote: post #273
woutr_be wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use WeChat to talk to friends in China, (I live in HK) and I noticed that last year, especially when the protests were intense, many of my posts just didn't show up. These were mostly pictures unrelated to the protests. I had the sense that anything coming out of Hong Kong was just hidden by default.

lol, this is nothing new and nothing special. There are some words that just dont go through and messages dont arrive. I lived there and tried it with friends. You literally stand next to each other, some messages arrive, some dont. For me it is not a big deal - for most Chinese it is not a big deal. Somehow most people who never touched Wechat it seems to be a big deal.

For me it is not a big deal - for most Chinese it is not a big deal. Somehow most people who never touched Wechat it seems to be a big deal

Sure, because on most Western messaging platforms these days losing a message is pretty rare. It’s not a problem on WhatsApp for example. It’s rarely a problem even with SMS. So either the technology is really shoddy or messages are being blocked, which explanation would you prefer?

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#486

Post by ctchocula »

Markoff wrote: post #301
idra wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Have no choice" is false. Fortunately, email still works. As does any messenger through a VPN. Using Wechat is simply being complicit with censorship out of laziness.

QQ works as well, I would be curious how does QQ compare to WeChat regarding censorship, maybe flying under radar currently?

Probably censored as well, because both are owned by the same company Tencent.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#487

Post by andreilys »

midasz wrote: post #463
101404 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if TMobile or Verizon would drop your call, because you mentioned some political candidate's name, that would be completely okay with you?

Are you comparing facebook to a utility company? But honestly, misinformation in this day and age is such a huge problem. If a source is willfully spreading misinformation (that can be fact checked) then yeah, why should they be allowed to do that? They have absolutely no value, except for the people trying to deceive in order to further their agendas.

Facebook for most people is effectively a utility in all but name.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#488

Post by RaceWon »

woutr_be wrote: post #274
88840-8855 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, this is nothing new and nothing special. There are some words that just dont go through and messages dont arrive. I lived there and tried it with friends. You literally stand next to each other, some messages arrive, some dont. For me it is not a big deal - for most Chinese it is not a big deal. Somehow most people who never touched Wechat it seems to be a big deal.

You don't think censorship is a big deal? That's exactly the reason why their government gets away with it, because people see it as no big deal.

> That's exactly the reason why their government gets away with it

So it's not the death camps then? Hmmmm... I must say that I remain totally skeptical as to your assertion.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#489

Post by yyhhsj0521 »

woutr_be wrote: post #274
88840-8855 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, this is nothing new and nothing special. There are some words that just dont go through and messages dont arrive. I lived there and tried it with friends. You literally stand next to each other, some messages arrive, some dont. For me it is not a big deal - for most Chinese it is not a big deal. Somehow most people who never touched Wechat it seems to be a big deal.

You don't think censorship is a big deal? That's exactly the reason why their government gets away with it, because people see it as no big deal.

Not a big deal in terms of having been normalized. Ofc it's bad.

Re: We Chat, They Watch

#490

Post by marblessubtext »

101404 wrote: post #449
brandall10 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's run by a person on Trump's campaign team: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/us/politics/fake-joe-bide... At the bottom it claims: "It is not paid for by any candidate, committee, organization, or PAC." While that may be technically true (it would be hard to verify), it's certainly misleading. I'm assuming because of that claim it runs afoul of FB's community standards.

How is it misleading? It's completely true. And, is Fb now a judge in the US who should decide these things? I don't think it's good to trying to justify what Fb is doing.

Is Mauldin paid for his campaign work? If he is, what difference does it make if the political campaign site he's running (and that's what it is) has its development/hosting paid for by anyone?

Regardless of the answer to that question and the validity of the information on the site, the site looks like expert craft in sketchy campaigning. It isn't being very honest about what it is and it is not a good faith attempt at informing voters, all under the direction of effectively the Trump campaign. I think FB should be allowed to block crap like this.

edit: and to be clear this opinion applies for the reverse political ideologies as well. I wouldn't want to see e.g. Apple/Android blocking stuff in text messages, but I don't have a problem with FB/Twitter/Reddit doing it because that's where problematic discourse festers, by design.

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